


you can hear the wind chimes

by oxicleanmoron



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Afterlife, Gen, POV Second Person, drabbling about my all time faves what's new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 13:03:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17468093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxicleanmoron/pseuds/oxicleanmoron
Summary: It’s a drifting melody that marches on in your aural shells.Your immediate response is to grab onto it.  Mentally run your hands through its ringing symphony.  It’s estranged and yet so familiar.Why?





	1. Chapter 1

Wind chimes.  That’s the first thing you hear.  It’s a drifting melody that marches on in your aural shells.

Your immediate response is to grab onto it.  Mentally run your hands through its ringing symphony.  It’s estranged and yet so familiar.

 

Why?

_why why why?_

The tunes twine and flow and expand and glow, and you’re enraptured.  It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?  You’ve gotten so used to and so desensitized to the hum of machinery and blood and screaming and _Her laugh-_

 

Ah.

Like a rubber band, you are snapped back into existence a little too fast and way too hard.

You are now dry heaving and ruining a perfectly flourished field of greenery that tickles at your nose and sways with the cool night air.  Air.  You breathe in, and your strained respirators choke on the emotions.

Your maw tastes copper and saliva as it spills out in rivulets.  You smell dirt, and it’s absolutely delightful in the most disgusting way.  It reminds you of your wetware, almost, except less… clinical?  A tremble wracks your- _your EVERYTHING_ as you are forced to confront this new era of self.

 

You, The Imperial Helmsman of the Battleship Condescension, are decommissioned.  Permanently.

 

You can't build the confidence to open your eyes.  The tiny universes trapped behind your eyelids is familiar and safe and the only thing restraining you from blasting a hole into the terra firma.  A sickeningly familiar concept.

Do you even have your psionics?  Or did She steal those from you too during your final explosion of pyre and gold and ichor?  Heh.  A miniscule division of your pan idly wishes that you could have bore witness to Her reaction, but-

Wow, you really can’t stop focusing back on those wind chimes.

Your chitin tingles and reverberates like number processes to the unregulated tempo, and you chase it now.  Run after it on tough paws.  You can sense it.

At some point, you trip and crash, and now you taste the dirt, and you don’t get back up.  Your pusher and respirators continue on uselessly, but it’s reassuring especially since you haven’t needed to control your own breathing for... some time.

And now there are voices talking at you (talking to you? It’s been so long,) and you’re warm and a little cold, and it burns, but it’s okay?  Why is it okay?

 

_What?_

Something (someone) pushes you onto your back and wipes your mouth: tough, fat finger pads with blunted claws.  Your lip twitches upwards at that, and the sensation is gone.  A moment passes, and you are hoisted into an embrace of sorts- horizontal not vertical. Which is oddly okay. You like this.

The plodding of paws is rhythmic while the voices are quite erratic, but they’re not like the ones you’re familiar with.  They aren’t mourning… or are they?  You’re quite content with rolling with the waves for the moment.

You remind yourself not to think of the ocean or anything semi-aquatic for the next long while.

Nails trail across the chimes, four of them- all different sizes, you can tell, and it’s LOUD.  Your oculars spark open.

And you see.

The stranger sucks in a gasp and nearly drops you, especially since your gangly frame naturally spills out of their wingspan.  Several blinks, and their face is in focus.  A square jaw with obsidian, coiled hair so long you consider it a waterfall and untamed scruff and eyes as white as bone... and their closed lip smile with nubby little teeth peeking out that match the equally nubby horns.  Eheh.  His smiles were always as dumb as your never ending love for him.

 

_Wait._

_“...KK?”_ You rumble out like a broken purr, _kehh-kehh_ , and _merciless horrorterrors alive-_ his grin is taking up his whole face.

And he presses his lips to your forehead for a moment trapped in eternity, and you can feel that scruff rub in that way you absolutely hate loving, and then he backwards nudges the screen portal open with such gusto you think you’re going to be ill.

This could all very well be a fever dream, but you’re in no rush.

He settles you down beside him on a reclining platform and cards through your hair as he shouts in that deep-yet-raspy tenor _“Mother! Mother!”_ over and over, and the other 'stranger' you now recognize as Meulin purrs and laughs near hysterically and engulfs and squeezes your right hand with her own like she’s surprised that you even have them.

In all honesty, you are too, and the whole sensation thing is really freaky in general.

You absorb the new surroundings.

Meulin, on your right, has not changed much other than a plethora of new scars, a more muscular filled-out frame, and a mane now easily reaching the floor like her old lusus pelt that would often collect flora and fauna.  You remember her mentioning that it _“helped her blend in,”_ and _“of coarse Mx. Purrotechnics would never understand."_ Her eyes are endlessly blank.

The hive you’re currently occupying is like deja-vu in all of the most pusher-breaking ways.

Everywhere the clade had travelled and taken respite, Mother Dolorosa would attempt to recreate some piece of her old hive since it was long demolished and replaced with her more adventurous, nomadic lifestyle with her grub.  Whether it be through her cooking or the arrangement of her piles, or candles that burned of sage and citrus, she would rebuild the sanctuary she once had.  And here it is, right in front of you, damned near exactly as she had spoke of it.

The construction is as warm and as elegant as the troll herself.

Speak of the seraph, she rounds the corner and elegantly drops to her knees in front of you as if you deserve any respect at all.  You don’t, but you can’t get your voice to properly work at the moment.  She is endlessly tall.  Her horns arch and swirl and compliment her gorgeous robes and headscarf... The facial scars are definitely new.  Never would she put her countenance at stake unless it was for her children- that goes without mentioning.  You almost lose her oculars against her pale complexion.  She, too, twines her delicate pads through your hair right between your larger horns.  Like lusus, like grub.

“Welcome home, Mituna,” she sings on a whisper, and you send transparent sparks flittering through the air before sobbing like a wiggler.  Arms encompass you and pap you and soothe you and you’ve never felt more alive.  You fully and finally give in.

You know you’ve changed.  They have too.  You tried keeping watch over them from the stars, but your hands were tied, and you could barely trust yourself let alone the propaganda that trickled into your database.  You stopped counting and started counting ones and zeros and _it was so much easier to be a machine rather than Mituna._

And yet, some part of the Psiioniic remains- tucked between your fourth and fifth rib- and they waited.

 

You can hear the wind chimes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mini bonus chapter from sign's pov since psii is dubious as fuuuck

You're cleaning and stacking plates in the nutritional block when you hear what could only be described as a dying star crash by the east side.  It’s not that uncommon for random debris to leak into your dream bubbles, but by the way your Beloved skirts through and out the hive portal to investigate, your curiosity piques as well.  Mother is most likely tending to the garden, so you follow Meulin, gliding your fingers across the wind chimes on the porch to notify her that you’ll be back.

 

You catch up to her after a great cardio session that leaves you slightly breathless.  She’s standing over a prone body laying face down.   Besides the torn clothes and dirt and blood and scars, there’s not much to identify from the troll.

 

“Be carefur,” Meulin says as you bend down to take a closer look.  “They seem… pointy.”

 

You huff a soft laugh.  “I promise not to get stabbed by their shoulder blades.”

You roll the troll over, and you nearly fall on your ass.

 

A skeletal-like facial structure, four horns, crooked teeth poking out from behind a mouth full of gold blood and dirt, hair like circuitry wires.

 

“Fuck. _Fuck fuck fuck- Mituna._ ”  Meulin joins you kneeling on the grass as you quickly wipe as much gross shit as you can off of his face.  She softly pats his body down.

 

“Nothing seems to be purroken.  Atrophied, sure but…he’s breathing.”  She mentions and rubs her eyes with the heels of her paws. 

 

You nod and hoist him into your arms, supporting the crux of his legs and spinal column.  You think you can feel something hard and metal under his clothes and it terrifies you impossibly, but he’s here and breathing and _fuck you’ve missed him._

 

“Glory be- how long has it been?  Mituna, love, twin stars, I’m so sorry.  I’m so so sorry.  We’re home.   _You’re_ home.”  You ramble to him as you head back.  Your Beloved trails in front by a pace or two and rings the chimes again and Mituna coughs and his eyes finally open and glow eerily white as they focus on you.

 

You think you can hear him mumble your name through the distressed purring and you can’t help but kiss him.  He wordlessly huffs and grumbles but takes no initiative to move.  You stumble through the hive portal right into the recreational block, settling both of you down on the platform.

 

You keep your shaking hands busy by tangling them in his hair as Meulin takes position to his right.

 

She may scold you for this later, but you shout for Mother, and hope she arrives while he’s still somewhat lucid.  Meulin entertains herself by playing with his hands and arms and cooing old nicknames at him, and he seems to be reacting positively… if ‘staring blankly’ is considered positive.   _Hey, you'll take it._

 

His facial scars cut deep: rings and webs of torture.  You restrain yourself from touching the ones that appear new.

 

And Mother is here and she makes eye contact with you as if she’s about to chide you for using your outdoor voice, but as soon as she sees him, all other priorities dissipate and she kneels by his feet and joins your hands in his hair.

 

She takes a moment to compose herself and welcome him home and Mituna now focuses on her and-

 

He cries.

 

And you cry too and so does your Beloved and Mother.  You press your chest to his back and cry for all of the lost sweeps without him and it feels pitiful and amazing.

 

You bury your face against him and let the twin stars carry you home.

**Author's Note:**

> i have a propensity for using Big Words sorry lmao
> 
> this entire thing was based off of a hashtag i saw that felt oddly poetic
> 
> find my dumb art @ gutterwatergoblin.tumblr.com/tagged/gobart


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